Trio
Sowari’s first release, Three Dances, was one of
the musical highlights of 2005. Happily, their follow-up, Shortcut,
is every bit as good. One of things that’s particularly impressive
about it is tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler’s astute deployment
of the mostly unorthodox sounds he draws from his instrument. In
some quarters it has been argued that saxophones are an anathema
to EAI, that they sit uncomfortably in the music. Denzler proves
otherwise. His blasts of tuned air and percussive pad tapping blend
superbly with Burkhard Beins’s largely textural rather than
percussive approach to his kit, especially when Beins makes swishing
sounds by gently rubbing one of his drumskins with a block of polystyrene.
Beins also plays ‘small electrics’, which merge with
Phil Durrant’s software samplers and treatments.
Particularly good examples of the trio’s textural interplay
can be heard on Corridor and the pointillistic track that
immediately follows it, Dots #1. Running to almost ten
minutes, the latter track is one of the lengthiest on the aptly
titled Shortcut; most are half that length or less, and the five
parts of Piercing, with which the CD begins, total less
than four minutes. But even when the trio is working in Webernian
miniature there’s nothing insubstantial about the music, it’s
robust and emphatic, merely stripped of inessentials. Though ideas
are sometimes teased out at length, as on Trespassing,
the turnover of events is often surprisingly swift – or perhaps
it just seems like that because the music is consistently engaging.Brian Marley l
Signal To Noise l
March 2009

In
their ear-stinging adherence to the rules of regimented severity
as far as the absence of cuddling timbres is concerned, Trio Sowari
(Phil Durrant, Bertrand Denzler and Burkhard Beins) are an inflexible
unit, uncompromising representatives of non-indulgent perception
working with software samples, treatments, tenor sax, percussion,
objects and “small electrics”.Shortcut begins with a programmatic declaration of sorts,
five razor-sharp pieces aptly titled Piercing which, despite
the extremely short duration, point to a field of activity where
a cold impassiveness in front of any kind of emotion is the rule
to comply with. Freezing whispers, tiny lacerations of silence and
articulated pops revealing the exact diameter of the originating
conduit are put adjacent to practically invisible percussive gestures;
movements comparable to someone who, wide awake in the dead of night,
decides to start fiddling the insides of a miniature vessel with
the poise and the calmness necessary to avoid waking up the rest
of the family. Rarely the presence of an uninterrupted sound can
be appreciated, if you happen to consider the harmonic features
of a two-minute buzzing hum as such. Let’s not forget it:
a well placed drone puts inexplicable mechanisms of our consciousness
in motion; the cause is still to be exactly determined, but there
must be a reason if so many artists are drawn to that type of secretion.
In Triton the deficiency of rhapsodic fervour is denoted
by empty simulacra of desolateness, the sources combining in swelling
surges of petrifying subterranean vibrations and reticent frequencies,
while Trespassing echoes the sterility of humanity’s
fruitless seeking for divine attributes in their insignificant existence
through dampened bumps and soft bounces amidst barely variable currents
of unmusical resonance. Dots #2 shuts every door to any
residual hope of comprehension, impenetrably inhuman vestiges of
what we used to call “notes” diffusing a rational pressure
in the environment, undetectable poisoning fumes in an only apparently
clear sky.Massimo Ricci l
Touching
Extremesl
January
2009

Recorded
at La Muse En Circuit studio just outside Paris at the end of November
2006, Shortcut is a fine follow-up to Trio Sowari's 2005
debut outing Three Dances, also on Potlatch. I suppose
you'd still file it away under "EAI", but it's a good
example of just how difficult that particular term is to define.
Long tracks? Well, not necessarily: the first four are over and
done with in under three minutes. Slowmoving? Not always: anyone
who's seen Messrs. Durrant (Phil, laptop) Beins (Burkhard, percussion)
and Denzler (Bertrand, tenor sax) in action will have been impressed
by the often sprightly nature of their music, and that's very much
in evidence here. Quiet? For the most part yes, but not always:
Durrant in particular can get quite boisterous when he wants to.
His violin has been sitting in its case for a while now, but Shortcut's
intricate exchanges have more in common with his earlier work, notably
the great trio with Johns Butcher and Russell, than you might think.
Those who've taken it upon themselves to seek out precursors of
latterday EAI / lowercase / reductionism have been quick to point
to AMM (logically enough, given Keith Rowe's prominence in the scene),
but I have a sneaking suspicion that John Stevens' work with the
various incarnations of his Spontaneous Music Ensemble might prove
to have been just as influential in the long run. I'd argue that
a line could be traced back from the tight interplay of Shortcut's
superb closing track Moving Targets via The Scenic
Route to the SME's A New Distance and Face To
Face. That said, there's nothing remotely retro about this
music: the sonic pinpricks of Dots #2
are as exquisitely placed and compelling as anything on Durrant's
two seminal lowercase outings with Thomas Lehn and Radu Malfatti,
beinhaltung and dach, and the rich textures of
Trespassing should certainly appeal to EAI purists, all
150 of them. Musicianship and creativity of the highest order –
if it didn't make it to your Christmas stocking this year, make
sure it gets there in 2009.Dan Warburton l
Paris
Transatlanticl
December
2008

Someone
is listening. Shortcut, the second release by European
minimalist improvisation group Trio Sowari is proof enough. They're
listening, not in the auditory sense, but in the experience of harkening,
attending, and actually hearing.
Trio Sowari is comprised of Phil Durant, the English violinist turned
electronics specialist, Swiss saxophonist Bertrand Denzler, and
German percussionist Burkhard Beins. This release, like 2005's Three
Dances (Potlatch Records), is a schooled recording, favoring
restraint over noise and texture over chaos.
Don't plan to get up and dance to this music. It requires attention
to pick up clues from the sounds. The trio keeps things, for the
most part, unobtrusive and placid without becoming apathetic. That's
because the three interact so well. Betrand Denzler who has worked
with Jean-Luc Guionnet, Stéphane Rives, and Frédéric
Blondy, is a master of the breathy saxophone; mining his instrument
for pop, inhalations, clicks and over-blown notes. Paired with percussionist
Burkhard Beins (Phosphor) and superstar Phil Durrant, the saxophonist
falls into the groove. Well, maybe not a groove so much as a conscious
style.
The listening experience here is either the confounding question
of who made what sound or it is simply a reflection on the textures
created. From the on/off switching of the very short Piercing
pieces, with lengths from 17 seconds to 1:19 to the rumble of Moving
Targets and the ticking of Dots#2, the sounds
offer the meditative simplicity of the acoustics of electricity
that cannot be ignored. It's unclear how or what they've done, but
surely Trio Sowari has done it again. Mark Corroto l
All
About Jazzl
October
2008